This invention relates generally to systems and methods for distributed enhanced payment processing, including multi-merchant tokenization of transaction information, augmented with processing of virtual electronic payment (VEP), and additionally augmented with arbitrated payment of both VEP and legacy credit and debit card transactions. Such systems and methods enable increased security for payments and transactions, provide for more seamless transactions across groups of related merchants, and enable groups of related merchants as well as merchants in general to provide a broader range of payment related services than those available from traditional credit and debit payment card providers alone. Additionally, such systems and methods provide merchants greater control over the processing of electronic payments via Arbitraged Enhanced Payment (AEP) services including, but not limited to, how rapidly a given payment is processed and/or what entity processes a given payment.
Many brick and mortar merchants utilize electronic point of sale (POS) terminal systems to perform purchase tallying and payment processing including electronic payments. A natural element of POS terminal system development has been the establishment of third party electronic payment management service providers who securely and reliably aggregate and direct electronic payment requests from merchants' POS terminals to payment card companys' payment systems and thus act as payment intermediaries. Additionally, as electronically connected intermediaries, payment management service providers may provide AEP services with a granularity that may range from all the transactions of a given merchant down to per individual transactions.
Current payment management systems may rely solely on software from third party POS developers to support numerous POS input display and input devices with which to acquire payment related information from purchasers. Support for a new POS device or for a new VEP paver may be delayed by an overloaded POS developer. Therefore, a distributed architecture utilizing a “payment client” operating remotely on a given POS terminal system to directly provide support for numerous POS input display and input devices and for various VEP payers may thus offload POS developers and speed up availability of new VEP and POS device support. Additionally, such a payment client may be updated from time to time to support enhancements such as AEP services.
“Tokenization” provides a means for replacing sensitive transaction information with a “token” containing encrypted transaction information that is secured against deciphering by a hacker (or a merchant) because decryption key storage and decryption service is provided remotely from the storage location of the encrypted transaction information. This protects against a hacker accessing both said encrypted sensitive information and the corresponding decryption key when compromising a single system.
Often a merchant may have multiple locations that work together, or a merchant may operate a franchise location that works together with other franchise locations, and as such current systems may limit these merchants from all relying upon a single token. Thus, account information has to be individually input by each of the varied merchants in order to perform related transactions for a single customer. Multi-merchant tokenization allows utilization of a single token, which may include account information, by multiple associated merchant's POS terminal systems.
Virtual electronic payment service providers (VEP entities), such as PayPal, Dwolla, Google Wallet, etc., may act as intermediary payment agents for purchasers and/or merchants. VEP entities provide services that augment and/or substitute for traditional payment services such as payment cards and checking accounts.
In a general sense, arbitrage is the practice of taking advantage of a price difference between markets. The differential between what merchants pay for payment processing and what electronic payment processors (VEP and TCB credit card and debit card) charge to process large aggregations of payments creates a market for AEP services. In addition, the differential between the breadth of payment services desired by merchants and those provided by electronic payment processors creates a demand for AEP processing including, but not limited to, services such as choice of payment processor entity(s), prioritized transaction processing, and advance on receivables.
The electronic payment processing services accessed via POS terminal systems by brick and mortar merchants are absolutely fundamental to their businesses. Therefore, it is critically important that the addition of VEP entity services as well as AEP services causes little or no change or disruption to the use of “traditional card brand” (TCB) payer services such as credit cards and debit cards. Furthermore, to avoid aggravating purchasers, the interface for the new VEP entity services should integrate intuitively and relatively seamlessly with a given POS terminal system's existing purchaser user interfaces.
A given VEP entity may potentially offer an ever expanding set of services to purchasers. Further, since there is little barrier to entry into the Internet side of the VEP entity market, the number of VEP entities may continue to grow. And finally, there is no standardization of services or operation between VEP entities—for example, one VEP entity may require a 10 digit telephone number to identify a purchaser while another may require an email address. Clearly brick and mortar merchants—and therefore their POS terminal system vendors—need a way to easily, securely and inexpensively add support for selected VEP entities to their POS terminal systems. And they need to do this while controlling and limiting VEP entity access to their customers.
Payment management service providers as established electronic payment aggregators for brick and mortar merchants' POS terminal systems are a natural and logical choice for centralizing and localizing changes (and therefore minimizing costs) arising from the addition of VEP entity services. AEP services may provide additional means to control costs and/or accelerate cash flow.
It is therefore apparent that an urgent need exists for systems and methods for improved security and streamlined transaction payment processing including support for virtual electronic payment. Such systems will have the added benefit of decentralizing sensitive account data in a manner which increases security of user data, while shifting risks away from the payment service and expanding said payment service to process virtual electronic payments. AEP services serve a need that is fundamental and undeniable by allowing merchants to accelerate and/or improve cash flow.